Saturday February 25, 2012

Thought of the day re the Labor leadership fight…an interesting “feedback” effect of the polling on the issue.

With several national polls showing Rudd unambiguously preferred to Gillard as Labor leader, and by large margins – and the Labor caucus set to stick with Gillard – the die is cast for the next election.

That is, Gillard cements her reputation as an “unpopular” (at best) or even “illegitimate” leader. The electorate – or enough of it – hardens in its view that Labor isn’t listening … And returns the favor.

The next election was always going to be horrible for Labor, right up there with historic wipeouts a la 75, 96 etc. Sticking with a leader who is now widely known to be not “the people’s choice” helps lock in that destiny.

In turn, expect the vitriol against Abbott to continue and amplify. It’s about all Labor has now as an argument, and about the one thing the party can agree on.

As Labor doesn’t run scare campaigns, or so they’ve been telling us, it leaves them few options. Or maybe they could try running the campaign as they did on the GST and Work Choices, which apparently weren’t scare campaigns.